WANCHOO, C. J.—This is an application by Premsukh praying for the issue of a writ of mandamus, prohibition, or any appropriate direction, order or writ against the Gram Panchayat, Sargot and the State of Rajasthan.

2. The applicant is a resident of village Sargot. His case is that a Gram Panchayat was first established in this village in July, 1943, under the Marwar Village Panchayats Act, 1939, for the period of three years. The period was later extended and came to an end in 1949. Thereafter the Panchayat stopped functioning and no Panchayat was constituted for the years 1949, 1950, and 1951. Then on the 6th of June, 1952, an election was held and the present Panchayat was constituted with Bhanwarlal as Sarpanch. This Panchayat has been acting since its constitution and in one case an ex parte judgment was pronounced against the applicant. The applicant claims that the Panchayat is improperly constituted and had no jurisdiction to act at all under the Marwar Village Panchayats Act, 1945, and relies on the following grounds:—

(1) that the population of village Sargot is below 1000 according to the census of 1951 and, therefore, no Panchayat could be established in that village without the express desire of the residents of the village and without consulting the Jagirdar, and as this was not done, the present Panchayat was improperly constituted;

(2) that no notification as required under sec. 4 of the Marwar Village Panchayat Act, 1945, was ever published and, therefore, the Gram Panchayat was never established according to law;

(3) that under rule 5 of the Marwar Village Panchayats Rules, a panch has to be at least 25 years of age before he can be elected and one of the panchas was below 25 years of age at the date of the election;

(4) that according to rule 7 of the said Rules, two of the panches have to be literate in Hindi. These two included Bhanwarlal and as he is disqualified, being below 25 years of age, only one panch literate in Hindi was left in the Panchayat and, therefore, it was improperly constituted; and

(5) that there were irregularities in the election and the rules framed for the purpose were not complied with and, therefore, the whole election was invalid and the said Panchayat was improperly constituted.

3. The applicant further says that as soon as he came to know of the election, he represented the matter to the authorities. There was an enquiry into it but the Minister-in-Charge had not yet taken any action on the report of the enquiry. The applicant, therefore, prays that the Gram Panchayat being improperly constituted had no jurisdiction to decide the case which it did and the order of fine in that case against the applicant could not be enforced.

4. The application has been opposed on behalf on the State and most of the points raised by the applicant have been traversed. Only on two points it is admitted that there was no compliance of the Rules namely, (i) that Bhanwarlal was below 25 years of age when he was elected as Panch, and (ii) that there was no beat of drum announcing the election as provided by the Rules. It is further urged that even if there was some irregularity in connection with the election of the Panches, the acts done by the Panchayat were saved by sec. 14 of the Panchayat Act. Lastly, it is urged that this Court should not act as an election tribunal in its extra-ordinary jurisdiction under Art. 226 of the Constitution and that there was provision under sec. 8 of the Panchayat Act whereby irregular election could not be set aside by the Minister-in-Charge.

5. We shall take the first two points urged on behalf of the applicant together. The answer to the arguments in relation to these two points is, in our opinion, contained in sec. 2 of the Marwar Village Panchayat Act 1945. That section lays down that all Panchayats established before the commencement of this Act shall be deemed to have been established under this Act. This Panchayat was admittedly established in July, 1943, and the appl

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